Married US soldier arrested in Russia for stealing girlfriend, US officials say

Red Square in Moscow with St. Basil’s Cathedral on the left and the Kremlin with the Spassky Tower on the right. A U.S. Army staff sergeant who was visiting his girlfriend in Russia has been arrested and remains in custody on charges that he stole from her, U.S. officials said. (Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes)

WASHINGTON – A U.S. Army staff sergeant who was visiting his girlfriend in Russia has been arrested and remains in custody on charges that he stole from her, U.S. officials said.

Gordon Black, 34, was arrested Thursday in Vladivostok, a military and commercial port in the Pacific, and is being held at a detention center, Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said in a statement Tuesday. Black was assigned to U.S. Forces Korea’s Eighth Army at Camp Humphreys in South Korea and was scheduled to move to Fort Cavazos, Texas, Smith said.

Instead, Black, who is married, traveled to Russia to meet a longtime girlfriend, according to officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel details. His arrest further complicates US relations with Russia, which have become increasingly strained due to the war in Ukraine.

“Instead of returning to the continental United States, Black flew from Incheon, Republic of Korea, via China to Vladivostok, Russia for personal reasons,” Smith said. “Black has not requested official approval and (the Defense Department) has not approved his travel to China and Russia. There is no evidence that Black intended to remain in Russia after his (permanent change of station) leave expired.”

A Russian Interior Ministry official told the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Friday that Black was arrested on Thursday for theft of personal property. Smith said there is no further information about Black’s situation at this time.

“(Black) will remain in custody until his next hearing pending a decision,” she added.

A Russian court said Tuesday that Black would remain in custody until July 2, NBC News reported.

“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin has a long history of holding American citizens hostage. A warning to all Americans – as the State Department has said, it is not safe to travel to Russia,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a social post Monday was divided on X.

The Russian woman Black was visiting had been living in South Korea and last fall she and Black got into some sort of domestic dispute or altercation, officials told the AP. She then left South Korea.

NBC News, which first reported the arrest, said the soldier was accused of stealing from a woman.

Black’s mother, Melody Jones, told ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday that the soldier was on two weeks’ leave when he traveled to Russia and that she felt he was being framed because she suspected his girlfriend was a spy.

Black joined the Army in 2008 as an infantryman. From October 2009 to September 2010 he was stationed in Iraq. Black also served in Afghanistan from June 2013 to March 2014.

The soldier is not the only American imprisoned in Russia. The US government has said that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, arrested in March 2023, and Marine veteran Paul Whelan, arrested in 2018, were unjustly imprisoned in the country.

The arrest comes less than a year after Army Pvt. Travis King was taken into custody by North Korea. He was stationed in South Korea and ran into the country during a group tour through the heavily guarded Joint Security Area, where King was immediately arrested. He was sent back to the United States in September and charged with desertion in October.